BEDFORD -- Dave Nugent remembers how moonlight and sunlight only peek through the holes of the dense tree canopies in Vietnamese jungles.

The big flashes he saw one September night in 1967 were from the grenade that he grabbed and threw the moment it rolled into his foxhole.

A wounded rifleman had already passed out in the pit. Blinded from the flashes, the two radiomen were also disabled. Believing the Viet Cong would start shooting at them, Nugent reached for the rifle without realizing the grenade had blown the fingers off his left hand.

Nugent, then a Marine staff sergeant, finally picked up the rifle with his right hand and pointed it toward the enemy. Then, he began running. He knew he had to get help for his wounded comrades.

That would give the enemy the chance to shoot him -- once in the leg and once more in the hip.

Forty-six years have passed. And watching Nugent finally receive a Bronze Star for his bravery in Vietnam on Monday, Sgt. Maj. Alfredo Franco with the 4th Marine Division, who has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, couldn't be happier.

Inspiring younger generations was also what Nugent had hoped would come out of his belated recognition.

"I'm happy and proud," Nugent said.

Nugent, a 72-year-old Lowell native, received the Bronze Star from the Marine Corps on Monday for his heroics in 1967 that saved several soldiers' lives.

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Following the national anthem, Col. Russell Smith, commanding officer with the 25th Marine Regiment out of Devens, presented the medal and certificate to Nugent as Nugent's family watched inside a function room at Hanscom Air Force Base. Nugent and his wife, Marcia, who raised two children in Dracut, now reside in Brewster.

According to Nugent's daughter, Lynn Bagwan, who lives in Milton, Ontario, Canada, and attended the ceremony, the process to document his bravery started when her husband, Brady Bagwan, who has the experience of fighting in Iraq as an Army officer, began asking his father-in-law some questions several years ago.

As a child, Lynn Bagwan said, she only knew her father's involvement in the Vietnam War from the scar on his left hand, which is missing the index and middle fingers, but Nugent wouldn't say much about his battle-zone experience.

"He is a very humble man," Bagwan said.

The request for the recognition went through U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas' office, and the Marine Corps decided to provide him with one of the military's top awards.

"It's a little late in coming. Marine Corps is not perfect," Smith said. "Sometimes it takes time to remember what we are supposed to do," but the Marine Corps goes back in time to make it right, he said.

Nugent entered the Marine Corps in 1960 right after graduating from Lowell High School and landed in Vietnam in 1966 as part of the 26th Marine Division out of California.

Nugent described the Vietnam War as a difficult war. Many of Viet Cong soldiers were villagers who would farm during the day, he said.

"You never know who is who," he said.

The enemy excelled at spotting American soldiers in the midst of jungles.

On the night he was injured, the enemy had been firing at American troops for a while. While hiding inside a foxhole, Nugent asked the two radiomen who were with him to ask for a rifleman. As the rifleman was shot in the leg and fell right outside their foxhole, Nugent took off his belt to help the soldier stop the bleeding and told him to try to stay quiet. That's when the grenade rolled into the hole, Nugent said.

Nugent spent a year at the Naval hospital in Chelsea after coming home. Lynn Bagwan said she knows the injury still hurts today but that Nugent, who worked for 37 years as a registry clerk for the U.S. Postal Service in Billerica, has never complained. And despite the physical scar, Nugent didn't forget to see the brighter side of things.

"He always said if he had not been injured, he would have lost his life (for staying in Vietnam longer)," Bagwan said.

Nugent, who has coached youth sports from soccer to softball in Greater Lowell for many years, said he also sees a silver lining in the medal presentation that came 46 years late.

"Receiving the award today is more meaningful than it would have been 46 years ago," Nugent said.

That's because his son and daughter and four grandchildren could all witness him being honored. Nugent said he also hopes the story about his experience will also "increase awareness of patriotism" among active-duty Marines and the general public.

Franco said the ceremony proved to him that the Marine Corps takes care of its own members. Nugent also set a bar for younger Marines to strive toward, Franco said. The Marines who attended the ceremony must feel that they must do their best so that the men who came before them would know the Marine Corps is in good hands, Franco said.

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